


Midnight Cocoas

by hannahhoppers



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Comfort fic, Drabble, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post Season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 13:32:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7936543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahhoppers/pseuds/hannahhoppers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come on. Let’s go downstairs, I’ll fix you a hot drink, and then we can talk about it. Alright?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Cocoas

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the show or the characters, so I'm playing with them. Adam and Eddy have such nice toys. Unbeta'd. Kudos and comments if you enjoy!

He stirred to a quiet noise beside him. As his eyelids creeped open, he heard a muffled whimper and a sniffle. 

 

“Swan?” She was sitting by the headboard, her legs curled up against her chest, her fist in her mouth to muffle her crying and eyes squeezed shut against her knees.

 

“Sorry. Did I wake you?”

 

“No, no, it’s fine, love.” A beat. “What’s wrong, Emma?”

 

“I- it was just a nightmare.” He nodded, then slid his legs out from under the covers. Standing, he offered a hand to her. At her confused look, he said,

 

“Come on. Let’s go downstairs, I’ll fix you a hot drink, and then we can talk about it. Alright?” She bobbed her head and followed him. She pulled a chair out from in front of the table and settled into it while he set the stove to high and set a pot of milk atop it. Her eyes were rimmed in red, a sharp, devastating contrast to the green of the irises. 

 

“So what happened, in this nightmare of yours?” he asked, stirring soft brown powder into the bubbling froth before him.

 

“It was… it was you, hanging over the River Styx like when I found you, back in… back in the underworld, a-and you were… were still all bloody and beaten, and you were yelling all these things at me… those things you said, back when you were the dark one, and then you moved on to things everybody else has told me, a-and what I’ve told myself, and then… and then when I tried to cross the bridge, to… to save you, you just… fell into the river. The chains unravelled or something, and Killian, I’ve never heard a more pained scream in my life… not ever…”

 

“Oh, Emma.” He abandoned his post at the stove to walk over and lay an arm over her shoulders, drawing her up from her seat and into him. She shook for what could have been hours. He heard her mumbling something as he held her, but elected to wait until she was in a better state of mind before asking what it was. 

 

When she shifted, though, he heard her murmuring “I’m sorry,” over and over again. 

 

“No, no, no, no, Emma, what do you have to be sorry for?”

 

“I hurt you, Killian!” she sobbed. “You- I tethered you to excalibur, and made you into a dark one, a-a-and I… I _killed_ you, and…”

 

“No, no, it’s alright, love. I’m not tethered, I’m not the dark one anymore, I’m okay. Everything’s okay, Swan. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

 

“What?”

 

“For all those things I said. For putting you through all of that. I never should have put you in a place where you had to make me a dark one. If anybody’s to blame, it’s me.” He pressed a lingering kiss to the crown of her head. He heard her take a deep, deep breath before she pulled away. Her eyes scanned over his face a few times before her hands came up and her fingertips gingerly brushed against his cheeks. Her palms pressed against his jaw as she cupped his face. 

 

“I don’t blame you.”

 

“Emma-”

 

“No. Let me finish. I don’t blame you, shoulds and should nots be damned. Yeah, you did some bad stuff. So did I, Killian. I ripped out a thirteen year old girl’s heart, just to get a man out of a tree. Those couple of months, we were both in the wrong more than a time or two. We both said some things we wish we could take back. And we can’t just say it was the darkness, because it wasn’t. We both did things of our own free will, and they were some pretty screwed up things. Alright? But it’s in the past. It’s done, it’s over. We shouldn’t forget about it, but we do both need to move on. I’ve forgiven you, I’m working on forgiving myself. It’s time to live in the moment, yeah? This is our future. Let’s enjoy it, not let it slip away just because we can’t let go of the past.”

 

“Have I ever told you how bloody brilliant you are, Swan?” He leaned in to kiss her when they heard a hissing sound. She peered past his shoulder and gave a little gasp. Killian pivoted and saw foaming chocolate bubble over the edges of the saucepan and onto the smooth glass of the stovetop. They froze for a moment before she flicked her wrist and the cocoa flooded back into the pot, the heat turned down a bit. He kissed her temple before crossing to stove to pour the drink into mugs for the two of them. She collected one from the counter, sprinkled it with cinnamon, and led him towards their front porch to watch the sunrise.

 

“I love you.”

 

“I love you, too.”


End file.
